New street signs coming next year in Charlevoix

City must replace signs by 2018 to comply with federal rules

March 11, 2011|By Steve Zucker Charlevoix Courier Editor

At Monday's regular semi-monthly Charlevoix City Council meeting, city street superintendent Pat Elliott asked the council for some direction on the limited choices the city has to comply with a new federal regulation regarding street name sign regulations.

If you are fond of Charlevoix's throwback wooden street name signs, enjoy them now because starting next year they will start disappearing from city street corners.

At Monday's regular semi-monthly Charlevoix City Council meeting, city street superintendent Pat Elliott asked the council for some direction on the limited choices the city has to comply with a new federal regulation regarding street name sign regulations.

Elliott explained under new federal rules, by 2018 the city must replace its crop of aging wooden white-with-raised-black-letters street name signs with new steel signs that meet federal visibility and reflectivity requirements.

To comply with the regulations, municipalities may choose between one of four background colors -- blue, green, black, or brown. The signs' white lettering may not be altered, but municipalities may choose to have the signs with or without a white boarder.

A straw poll taken by mayor Norman "Boogie" Carlson during the meeting among the council and the roughly 20 people in the audience found near unanimous preference for the black background with the border.

Elliott was seeking guidance from the council on the signs prior to his proposed phased replacement of the street name signs in the city starting in the 2012-13 budget year. His plan calls for breaking the city up into five section and doing one section per year for the next five years.

He estimated the average cost for the signs will be about $35 each. With about 300 street name signs in the city (not counting private streets), that comes to a little more than $10,000.

Elliot said the council may want to consider whether it wants to require private roads to have a sign that matches other public road signs. He estimated there are about 20 private streets in the city.

In other business, the council approved a new four-year lease with Island Airways for the space that the company currently occupies at the Charlevoix Municipal Airport terminal. The lease sets the Island Airway's rent at $1 per year, but also stipulates that it must share in 50 percent of utility costs, gives the city the right to terminate the lease when the terminal is demolished to make way for a new building (expected in about two years), and settles a dispute between the city over whether the city may start collecting rent on the hangar Island Airways uses starting April 1. In a separate lease also approved Monday, Island Airways will begin paying rent on the hangar space on April 1 at a rate of 30 cents per square foot.

The new leases grew out of the city's decision to start handling the airport's day-to-day operations itself starting April 1 instead of contracting with Island Airways for those services as it had done in the past.